Dioxins are environmental pollutants that have raised public concern because of their toxicity and their ability to remain in the environment for a long time. No practical solution has been proposed so far to effectively eliminate dioxins from the environment. One approach is to collect dioxin-polluted materials in one place for physical and chemical processing. This approach is considered difficult, however, especially when materials contaminated with low-level dioxins are spread over a large area. Bioremediation, a process that takes advantage of biological activities of microbes in cleaning the environment, is currently considered the most effective solution to address such low-level pollution. In constructing an effective bioremediation system, it is crucial to isolate naturally occurring organisms that have a strong ability to rapidly degrade, metabolize, and detoxify dioxins.
Conventional screening processes for dioxin-degrading organisms involve use of dioxins themselves or radioactively labeled other compounds in order to evaluate the ability of organisms to degrade dioxins.
Some of these processes require a pre-treatment in evaluating organisms' capability while others require special instruments to detect radioactively labeled compounds. Also, analytical procedures such as gas chromatography and HPLC employed in these processes are time-consuming.
Accordingly, it is an objective of the present invention to eliminate the above-described drawbacks of the conventional screening techniques for dioxin-degrading organisms by providing a novel screening method that permits even more efficient screening for desired organisms. The present invention also provides compounds and a screening kit for use in this screening process.